Nature's reading room

As a child, I gravitated toward reading outside. I like to think it was because I was imaginative and adventurous, but I suspect it had more to do with the fact that I had four younger siblings.

If you’ve never sat under a weeping willow with your favourite author, go - go do it now. (Take a flashlight if the sun has already clocked off for the day.) Not just any weeping willow, though; the tips of the branches must sweep all the way to the ground like a Victorian skirt, creating a private green room where little beggars - be they siblings, children, or even colleagues - can’t find you.

As a young teen, I graduated to the sturdier upper limbs of elm and oak trees. Fields of wildflowers worked too, provided there was a rock or a tree trunk to lean against. My friends and I even had a library in a forest. We wrapped our books in waterproof, waxed bread wrappers and tucked them into cubbies formed by tree roots, meeting daily to read, using mossy rocks as seats and tables. I suspect more than a few of those books are still hidden on the forest floor, all these years later.

Have you noticed - people tend to experience the world differently depending on their interests or professions. On a drive through Saskatchewan, for example, an Australian rancher friend pointed out coyotes lurking in ditches, a camouflaged deer in a field, and bear cubs clambering up a tree trunk. What had been a pleasant enough drive suddenly felt like a National Geographic special, simply because my companion was tuned in to what caught his eye. Another friend worked with power lines - not just poles and wires, as it turns out, but miles and miles of much more than that.

It’s the same for me. Even now, the landscape around me is mentally mapped into reading nooks: a cosy patch of grass by the riverbank, the inviting crook of a tree branch, a wooden pier dappled with sunlight.

The weeping willow remains my all-time favourite, but the nearest one is three streets away - and apparently they “ find it a bit strange for a grown woman to camp out on our lawn.” So I make do with my comfortable bed. The lamp casts a gentle circle of light, and except for the cat on my shoulder and the dog draped across my feet, it’s almost the real thing.

Almost.

Without the ants.

Amazon Creative Writing Guides
Denise Howie World Famous in B.C.